Hacks to solve common hotel inconveniences

For my part, I don’t much mind staying in hotels–provided the room looks clean (few if any of them actually are), there aren’t bugs crawling around all over the place, the hot water works and the mattress isn’t so soft that, when lying down, your body dips a solid five inches below the edges of the bed. I’ve stayed in hundreds of crappy, low-budget hotels and motels in my time and can only think of a handful of truly unpleasant experiences.

Having said that, I understand that most people are more particular, and that a lot of people really despise hotels, for a wide variety of reasons. Which is why I’m sharing news of a recent Twitter thread that has the potential to make your next stay—in fact all future stays—in a hotel less uncomfortable.

Said thread began when Rick Clau, senior operating partner at GV, tweeted an image—originally posted by someone else—showing a clever way to bridge the pesky gap between hotel curtains that don’t close all the way: use the clips on the bottom of a hotel clothes hanger to bring the curtains all the way together, and keep the early morning sunlight out of your sleeping face.

Clau’s tweet triggered a flood of comments, many of them from people who have come up with their own hotel hacks over the years. Below are some examples.

“If they don’t have enough outlets, use the USB port of the hotel room TV.”

For germaphobes:

“I wrap my hotel pillow with a [clean] hotel towel. … the thought of breathing in previous hotel visitors’ breath or dribble from the pillow frightens me to the core.” And:

“Carry a travel size bottle of Lysol … Spray everything when you get in the room. Also, Lysol wipes can be used for handles and remotes.” And:

“Use the plastic baggy from the ice bucket to wrap around the TV remote. Then I don’t have to worry about who touched it last.”

(Others pointed out that the shower cap also works well for this purpose.)

Speaking of shower caps:

“I take them home and use them to cover bowls of food in the fridge. Or I use them to wrap around my shoes in my suitcase.”

And if you’re working while traveling:

“Your ironing board is an adjustable height desk. Since the chairs are never the right height, use the ironing board for long hotel work.”

One more:

“If we’re posting hotel tricks, not many people realize you can use any card [to put in the card slot on the wall] to keep the power on.”

For more hotel hacks—and there’s a lot more—check out the thread in question here.